Anyone that spends any time with us in this space knows how much we love it when famous folks misbehave. It’s our whole raison d’etre, you know? Of course, there are different sorts of celebrity shenanigans, an assortment of subgenres that each have their own appeal.

For instance, there’s Twitter beef, which is itself a subcategory of regular beef – you know we love famous feuds here at Celebrity Slam. Or “Don’t you know who I am?” outbursts – those are really great, particularly when you deal with that particular brand that involves someone no longer famous enough to credibly ask that question in a vacuum.

This week, we’re going to discuss another beloved subgenre – celebrities misbehaving in airports. But while we usually take great delight in this actor or that musician doing something stupid while waiting for or on-board a plane (usually involving booze and/or inappropriate urination), this week’s item is going to focus on someone who may well have been unfairly maligned (THIS time).

It involves Bobby Brown drunk on a plane, but the payoff isn’t nearly what you’d think.

According to reports, it all went down on Monday morning. Brown was sitting in first class on a JetBlue flight from LAX to Boston when there was allegedly some sort of altercation. Brown was apparently intoxicated and the incident in question led to the airline ordering everyone off the plane, including Brown, who was met by law enforcement officers who were called to the gate to speak to him.

The conversation began in an agitated manner – Brown was shouting about needing to fly out to attend his brother’s funeral (sources say that it was actually his cousin) – but it wasn’t long before the officers calmed him down. Meanwhile, the plane reboarded and took off without Brown on board, although he wasn’t arrested or anything like that.

Here’s the thing: the general consensus seems to be that Brown kind of got a raw deal. According to witnesses – including some folks who were sitting nearby – he wasn’t being disruptive at all. He admitted to drinking before boarding, but did not appear to be causing any sort of problems. He didn’t even make a fuss when told that he would not be served another drink.

And yet, JetBlue pulled him off anyway. Their statement to TMZ was that Brown was “removed from the aircraft prior to departure after crewmembers observed indications of intoxication. The decision to remove a customer from a flight is not taken lightly. In this instance, the customer was offered a seat on a later flight. The customer declined and was issued a refund.”

So that’s that.

Here’s the thing: we get it. We get that the idea of having a drunk Bobby Brown on a cross-country flight probably isn’t the most appealing thing in the world. Hell, even if you don’t know anything about his music, you know that he has a reputation as being a bit of an a-hole. So sure, you’re maybe dreading the possibility of what’s to come.

But the guy didn’t actually do anything wrong. By all accounts, people said that he was just sitting there, a little tipsy, minding his own business. You have to think that there have been people far drunker that boarded a JetBlue plane and that didn’t have any problems at all. And THOSE people didn’t sing “My Prerogative.” Just saying.

No one is going to dispute that Bobby Brown has executed more than his share of d-bag maneuvers over the years. He’s not a particularly good guy. But for someone to basically decide that they didn’t like the look of him and call the cops because he maybe had one too many cocktails, well – that sucks. It sucks because the guy was trying to get to a family funeral and probably drinking a bit too much as a way to deal with his stuff. And it sucks because, again, he DIDN’T DO ANYTHING.

So this isn’t our usual sort of Celebrity Slam airplane story. We’re not here to condemn Bobby Brown for misbehaving, because he didn’t. We’re here to condemn JetBlue for being a pack of reactionary puds who’d prefer to cause a scene than simply let a guy sleep it off in first class.

We’re going to be up front with you right from the get-go – this isn’t necessarily a banner week for Celebrity Slam. For whatever reason, this cycle has been pretty light on the sorts of things that we tend to really dig into in this space. Even the VMAs – usually such a reliable source for Slammable stories – failed to deliver this year.

We understand that you have high standards with regards to the idiocy that we cover here, but the truth is that it was slim pickings. You come to us in search of precious gems.

What you get – at least this week – is Fetty Wap punching some dudes in Vegas.

According to law enforcement officials, the rapper was arrested on Sunday in Las Vegas following an altercation in which he took swings at not one, not two, but three different employees of The Mirage Hotel and Casino.

Apparently, Fetty got into some sort of dispute with one of the valets and things rapidly got heated – so heated that it became physical. Specifically, he’s alleged to have punched the dude at least three times.

After that, a different Mirage staffer reportedly made a citizen’s arrest – yes, really – and held Fetty until officers with the Las Vegas Metro Police Department showed up to take him into custody. All told, the rapper was booked for three misdemeanor counts of battery. Initial reports had those counts matched up to the three punches thrown at the valet, but later clarification showed that he was actually getting charged for attacking three different people.

Fetty was only in custody for a few hours before getting sprung, but he’ll have a court date to face the charges soon enough.

And … that’s kind of it, really.

We know – not the usual fun stuff that you get here. You can bust on Fetty Wap for punching a valet, for sure; you’d think an MC would be better about using his words. Throwing hands because you didn’t get your keys fast enough seems like an outsized reaction, but what do we know?

And getting into a fight in Las Vegas is so cliché, so there’s that. What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas if you’re going to brawl in front of a hotel while being famous. It’s a guarantee of problems, even in a best-case scenario.

Oh, and it has to hurt a dude’s street cred to get citizen’s arrested regardless, but to get taken down by a casino doorman probably isn’t going to be a great look. It’s going to be hard to project any sort of tough guy image when you can’t even handle a bellboy, you know?

But still – it’s kind of blah, right?

We debated going with the burgeoning relationship between Pete Davidson and Margaret Qualley here, but we had just spent time talking about what a dips—t Davidson was and besides, who the hell knows how long this dalliance will even last? It used to be that once these pairings went public, you could count on a little bit of time, but Pete seems to be in full-on churn and burn mode.

Did that prevent us from working our way toward a portmanteau? Reader, it did not.

Of COURSE we played our favorite name game. We just didn’t think it warranted our full attention because again, Pete was here last week and this relationship might not be here next week.

It doesn’t hurt that there’s an obvious choice. First names won’t cut it – “Pargaret” is a no go, and the less we say about “Mete,” the better. You could try and pitch “Davidsalley,” but it’s too long and it lacks musicality. So, you know – it’s clearly “Quavidson.”

Again, our apologies for not living up to the massive expectations generated by this space. We simply didn’t have the material to work with this week, and for that, we truly are sorry. We sincerely hope that this look at punch-happy Fetty Wap and Pete Davidson’s almost-certainly-already-doomed relationship is enough to tide you over until the next time our paths cross.

So just cross your fingers and wish for some hilariously stupid and nonsensical social media beef so that we can really get after it next week.

We’ve been known to occasionally get a little crotchety here at Celebrity Slam. We’ve been at this for some time now and the world is constantly changing and evolving. What mattered yesterday is forgotten today and nostalgically embraced tomorrow. Do we like change? Not really. But we begrudgingly accept it.

That said, we’re still susceptible to an “old man yells at cloud” moment every now and then. However, when we have them, we tend not to do so in a public forum.

Pete Davidson, on the other hand …

The “SNL” star was doing a set at the University of Central Florida the other night when the actions of his audience led him to go full-on “get off my lawn,” which is hysterical for a number of reasons.

Apparently, what set the comedian off was the sight of numerous audience members using their phones to film the set. What followed was a string of abuse as he railed against the college kids in the crowd by calling them “privileged little a—holes” and mocked the school for “being in the middle of f---ing nowhere.”

Our favorite part of all was when he decided to go deeper on his feelings with regards to kids today, calling them embarrassing and basically declaring that when the world ends in 25 years, it’ll be their fault. He closed with another f-bomb followed by an unfortunate use of a derogatory r-word.

(We won’t write it – if you can’t figure it out from context, the internet will tell you.)

After that, well … you know what, we’ll just let Pete’s own words do the talking.

“Just behave. I have to have my f---ing boy patrol you guys, like you’re five years old? That’s f---ing embarrassing. You should grow up. Where’s the next generation? Don’t you want adults to respect us? Don’t you want your parents to be proud of you? You know how f---ing embarrassing it is to be our age and walk out and know everybody thinks you’re a f---ing idiot? Grow up.”

Nothing gives you the high ground in a conversation about maturity quite like dropping a bunch of f-bombs on an audience of college kids because you’re mad about their cell phones, you know? Oh, and for the record, there was no indication that phones weren’t to be used. There were no signs and the opening acts didn’t mention a thing.

There’s a lot to unpack here. We can start with the fact that at just 25, Davidson is barely older than the “kids” that he’s yelling at. And considering the life that he’s lived up to this point, it seems strange that he would appoint himself an arbiter of maturity. To go into meltdown because some UCF sociology major isn’t paying close enough attention to him, well … let’s just say it doesn’t strengthen his argument.

Because that’s the thing here – he does have a point. For those of us beyond a certain age threshold, there’s something extremely rude about people having their phones out in that sort of situation – a comedy show, a concert, even a movie theater. We understand why Davidson would be irked by something like that.

But come on, man. Keep it together. This kind of thing is just shouting into the void, only the void is ready to sell the video to TMZ. You can rail against the privileged class all you want, but it isn’t going to fix anything. Doing it this way not only fails to get your point across, it undermines it – you’re the one who looks like the entitled dips—t, valid point or no.

Should people just leave their phones in their pockets during events like this? Sure. The notion of failing to experience something in the moment so that you can watch it through a screen, all in the name of somehow proving that you experienced the thing that you didn’t actually fully experience, feels foolish to those of us of a certain age.

Here’s the thing, Pete. You may not like it, but this is how the world works now. Put up a sign next time. Oh, and for the record, we’re not sure will be responsible for the end of the world, but UCF’s incoming class of 2023 ain’t it.

Our love for celebrity romances knows no bounds here at Celebrity Slam. Anyone who reads this space with any kind of regularity is aware that we derive great joy from the creation of famous couple portmanteaus. We love them so much, in fact, that we often find ourselves unable to address the endings of those relationships. Really, we’re just big softies. Romantics at heart.

But here’s the thing: we’re only human. And sometimes, one of these breakups blows up in such a spectacular fashion that we would not be doing our due diligence if we didn’t at least kick the tires.

And so we arrive at the ongoing breakup saga of Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth.

Many of us found out about this split not long ago. It was a bit surprising, actually; it seemed as though the two of them (Miam? Cyworth? Oh, what the hell, it doesn’t matter anymore anyway) genuinely cared about one another. Regardless, it was apparently over for a while before the world really got wind of it. It was kind of sad to think that they weren’t able to work it out, and so we left it alone.

And in the first days, that seemed like the right play; things seemed to be fairly low-key and civil, without a whole lot of nastiness or weirdness.

But then, man oh man, did it ever get nasty and weird.

Each side is painting a significantly different picture with regards to what led to the breakup. On Miley’s side, they’re saying that she tried desperately to save the marriage, but that the relationship simply couldn’t overcome Liam’s heavy drinking and drug use. Liam’s side vehemently denies these claims; they’re saying that the union ended due to infidelity on Miley’s part.

Both sets of sources are relaying this information through TMZ, because that’s the world that we live in now and we should all probably just get used to it.

Meanwhile, Miley is apparently gallivanting around the world with Kaitlynn Carter; photos of the pair making out in Italy surfaced last week, which is really what set this whole cycle into motion. Word from Liam’s people is that he was really hurt and blindsided by the pics. Her camp claims that the relationship had been over for months, but his side begs to differ (though he was photographed sans wedding band weeks ago, so who can say).

As a delightful added wrinkle to this whole mess, Carter had only recently broken up with beau Brody Jenner, who has in turn already started rebounding with Josie Canseco, daughter of former MLB star and steroid snitch Jose Canseco.

So – Miley is currently making the rounds with Kaitlynn, who broke up with Brody, who has now moved on to Josie. Oh, and Liam is basically just hanging out in Australia with his brother and some buddies. Got all that?

Look, we really weren’t going to do this. We figured that if it all came to an amicable end, why force some sort of snarky commentary into the mix? We’re jerks, but we’re not JERKS, you know? But now, this is all so next-level that we simply can’t avoid it.

This is vintage Miley, the sort of thing we got from her back in the day when she was a big old trainwreck and semi-regular visitor to this very space. And for there to be involvement from multiple cast members of “The Hills” is just … it’s magnificent. Very retro. It’s like we’re writing this in 2008. How can we NOT address this?

Of course, the standard “he said, she said” attitude applies. We’re never going to really know how exactly this played out. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle – it usually is. But there’s no denying the throwback vibes here.

Obviously, we wish nothing but the best for all parties involved. You hate to see things get ugly like this, particularly when you’re talking about a relationship that was off and on for basically a decade. We’re all for scorn and derision, but 10 years is a long time – it’s a shame that something like that has to come to an end, particularly in such a public and confrontational fashion.

One of the things we love most about working in this space every week is that you never really know what’s going to happen. The sorts of celebrities we tend to deal with are mercurial by their very nature, meaning that we can never be certain of just how things are going to play out. There are plenty of unexpected romantic pairings and LOADS of unexpected beef.

We’ll be dealing with the latter this week, though if you spent any amount of time online this weekend, you likely already know where we’re going with this – we’ve got beef between Kid Rock and Taylor Swift.

You read that right.

It all started when everyone’s favorite burnout southern rap-rocker/potential U.S. Senate candidate went on Twitter and took an absolutely-out-of-nowhere shot at Taylor Swift, tweeting:

“Taylor Swift wants to be a democrat because she wants to be in movies….period. And it looks like she will suck the door knob off Hollyweird to get there. Oldest move in the book. Good luck girl.”

(Oh, and he actually signed his tweet, which is both vaguely surreal and wildly funny.)

This came zooming out of the ether with zero context, and as you might imagine, it was not particularly well-received. It wasn’t long before the denizens of the internet – some famous, many not – took to social media to condemn swiftly, fiercely and (at times) hilariously.

The most common clapback involved people pointing out that despite Kid Rock’s best efforts to create his Detroit trailer park, man of the people image, the truth is that he grew up on a large estate with a millionaire father, riding horses and picking apples.

Yeah – it’s rarely a good look when your silver spoon is showing.

There was a minor related kerfuffle when an image purporting to be a like of the tweet from Kasey Musgraves made the rounds, but that was quickly determined to be altered.

Meanwhile, it seems as though Swift was content to basically ignore the whole mess, even going so far as to throw a pretty bonkers party to celebrate her 10 VMA nominations on Sunday. While she may have to deal with it in some capacity at some point, the current vibe is that she simply could not care less about what Kid Rock thinks.

And really, isn’t that an attitude we should all adopt?

It’s funny that Kid Rock mentions the oldest move in the book in his tweet regarding Swift’s path, because his own effort – to push himself back into the conversation by taking an unprovoked swing at someone much MUCH more popular – has been in the book for an awfully long time as well.

There’s a transparent thirst to the whole debacle; it is palpable just how much he desperately wants to be directly engaged on this one. It’s such a cynical, calculated move – one designed to piggyback on Swift’s fame and elevate his own profile.

And honestly? It kind of worked.

Look, is Kid Rock getting much in the way of positive attention? Not at all, but that’s hardly the point – for a garbage pile like him, any attention is good attention. And if he has to be blatantly and offensively misogynistic about it, well – so be it. His fade from the spotlight isn’t likely to be reversed by any creative actions on his own part – there just aren’t that many people out there clamoring for new Kid Rock albums – and so he does what he must. You’d almost admire it if it wasn’t so gross.

As for Swift – good work. You absolutely take the high road with something like this. Oh, and definitely refuse to engage – in the end, that’s what trolls really want. To not give it to him is the best payback – particularly when you know that half the internet will leap to your defense more vehemently than you yourself could ever comfortably pull off. Let the Chrissy Tiegens of the world get your back – they LIVE for this stuff. And you don’t have to get your hands dirty. It’s a win-win.

Obviously, no one is that surprised that Kid Rock is a jerk – that’s pretty much his brand at this point. But to go after T-Swift? Dangerous game, man.

We have a lot of fun here at Celebrity Slam. There’s a lot of enjoyment to be had from taking potshots at the idiocy of the rich and famous. We love tossing out liberal doses of scorn and derision at the stupid things that celebrities say and do. But it’s all in good fun.

Every once in a while, though, an item lands on our radar that we find genuinely off-putting. Granted, we don’t tend to delve into the seedy and sad behaviors of celebs – there are certain things that simply aren’t funny, and so we tend to avoid them – but there are occasionally stories that are both unpleasant and very much worthy of our attention.

And this week, we’ve got one.

Specifically, we’re going to talk about Aaron Carter. Why are we talking about Aaron Carter? Because word on the street is that he’s got some sort of d-bag grift going involving dogs – and we will not have anyone mistreating dogs, because dogs are the best thing and they deserve to be loved, not exploited.

Here’s the deal. Carter posted a video to Instagram Live over the weekend featuring an English bulldog that he apparently got from a Los Angeles animal shelter. In the video, he says the following:

“This is my new buddy. So by the way, if I can’t keep him, I am going to be listing him. He’s 10 months old, and he’s running for $3,500. So if anybody wants to give my English bulldog (a home), I rescue him and I find him homes. So if anyone wants to have my English bulldog, he’s being sold for $3,500.”

He also makes reference to another dog that he “couldn’t keep.”

As you might imagine, the idea that Carter would be “rescuing” dogs, only to turn around and sell them for exorbitant prices – likely because they’re now “previously owned by Aaron Carter” – rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Among the angered were the folks at the animal care center from which Carter got the dog just a couple of days prior – the Lancaster Animal Care Center took to their own Instagram page to announce that they were looking into it.

Carter claims that the whole thing is a big misunderstanding, tweeting:

“I think it’s ap[p]alling that I actually even have to explain myself I’ve rescued many dogs & found many dogs homes. what I said in my Instagram live video was a joke. Find one dog that I adopted and sold for money, be my guest. WONT HAPPEN. I’m a good person and i deserve respect.”

Carter went on to add that he makes millions of dollars and why would he even have to sell a dog to make money and everyone is totally stupid for even suggesting it before talking about the size of his house and how he would start taking legal action against anyone slandering his name and blah blah blah.

Here’s the thing: We don’t believe him. At all.

(At this point, we should repeat that we are HUGE dog lovers here and find anyone who hurts or exploits them to be reprehensible human garbage. We apologize in advance for any perceived overreaction in the paragraphs to follow.)

If this is a joke, it’s a really s----y one; anyone with genuine affection for an animal wouldn’t go there. This is a dog that you JUST rescued – on what planet is it a good look to go on the internet and talk about how much you can sell the poor guy for?

You claim to not be in it for the money, and yet you drop a dollar figure several times over the course of the video. Why do that if you aren’t conscious of the cash that you’re looking for? And of course, that leaves aside the fact that most shelters have contracts that discourage precisely this kind of asinine resale effort.

Regardless of whether or not this is a joke – and it’s not; dude’s only saying that because he got called out for being a jackhole – there’s no disputing that this is a real trashbag maneuver. The notion of that sweet little dog being exploited in such a way so soon after believing that he had found a forever home is just reprehensible.

We have a type here at Celebrity Slam. You all know it. We love feuds and we love romances. Beefs and portmanteaus – that’s what we’re here for.

That’s not all of it, of course. There’s plenty of room for more individualized buffoonery – famous people saying and doing idiotic things for idiotic reasons, that sort of deal.

But then there’s the stuff that’s just … weird. Stuff that doesn’t really fit in any of the other boxes but still very much needs to be addressed.

Yeah – we’re going to have to talk about that Armie Hammer video.

If you were on the internet at all last weekend, you probably already know. At minimum, you have a vague awareness of the situation, if not the specifics. But if you don’t know what I’m talking about, well … you’re in for it.

On Saturday, Hammer posted a video to his Instagram feed of him and his two-year-old son. In the video, the toddler has Hammer’s toes in his mouth. The unfortunate caption included the REALLY unfortunate tag #footfetishonfleek, which, you know, yikes.

Social media blew up – as you might expect – and while Hammer has yet to respond to the uproar, his wife Elizabeth Chambers wound up defending her husband, calling the video a family in joke and mentioning that she meant to share it only with relatives before Hammer went ahead and gifted it to the world.

“Our son likes to play with people’s feet and I put the video on our family stream because this phase is an ongoing joke. Sharing the video on Instagram was def not the best move on A’s part, but I can assure you that our children’s safety and well-being is always our first priority.”

And, well … yeah. Like we said – weird.

Let’s be upfront: this is all perfectly innocent. Babies and toddlers are weird and gross and hence find weird and gross things appealing. There’s no doubt that that kid thinks toe stuff is HILARIOUS and Dad’s just trying to keep his kid happy. Again – weird, but not harmful in any way.

But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.

Leaving aside the recording of the thing – which, come on, let they without weird and embarrassing family videos of themselves cast the first stone – the big problem here is the decision to post this thing on the internet.

Seriously, Armie – are you new? You’re a famous person living in 2019, man. How are you not aware of the idiot s—tstorm that would accompany this? It’s a weird thing to share with the world – of COURSE people are going to get all bent out of shape. Hell, Being Mad Online is practically the national pastime at this point.

And of course, you certainly didn’t do yourself any favors with that hashtag. Gross, dude. Introducing that kind of language, even as a (bad) joke, casts weird shade over the whole thing and gives everyone just a touch of the creeps. Again – pretty clearly not your intent, but you should really know better.

It can’t be stressed enough – this isn’t a condemnation of a dad letting his toddler be gross for five seconds. We all thought gross stuff was neat when we were little; weird things made us laugh. That shared time is fundamental to the development of the parent/child relationship, so good for Armie Hammer for spending it.

But why would you share that video? How could you not see that blowing up in your face? And why, dear God, why did you use that hashtag?

Ultimately, this is much ado about nothing. People like us will spend some time snarking on it and Twitter will do its Twitter thing. Jokes will be made and takes will be taken. It’s a dumb thing that happened and will almost certainly be forgotten in a few days and we move on to the next dumb thing. It’s the joy and curse of this feature – there’s always going to be something dumb coming over the horizon.

Will it be dumber than Armie Hammer posting a video of his baby son sucking his toes? Almost certainly not. But hey – dare to dream, right?

Sometimes, we have a distinct plan for this space that is set days ahead of time. We see an item hit over the weekend and we say to ourselves “Yes, this is it. This is our Celebrity Slam story for the week. Let’s go get some wings.” And then we do.

But then, every once in a while, something will pop up just as we’re preparing to go to press. Something that seems to offer more Slammable potential than the item upon which we had previously settled. Even if there’s a good chance that the new story will still be breaking in the days that follow, if it’s good enough, we’ll consider making the change.

This week, we are making just such a change. Our initial plan was to feature New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and the weird video he shared of talking his kid into jumping off a cliff or whatever. There was backlash and stuff – The Rock called him out, just as one example – and it seemed like it’d be a perfectly fine story.

But then Ellen Barkin called out beloved children’s television hosts Captain Kangaroo and Shari Lewis of being child-haters on Twitter and, well … how can we not cover this?

With the recent release of the first trailer for “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” the Mister Rogers biopic starring America’s Dad Tom Hanks, the idea of potential movies about other childhood icons began to circulate. But then actress Ellen Barkin inserted herself into the conversation by dropping this bomb on Twitter:

“I’m informing you now…Captain Kangaroo told me to go f—k myself. Shari Lewis refused to shake the hand of my then 6yo son. Don’t try to make a movie about those child-hating frauds.”

(There were also three fire emojis, so you know this is serious.)

Now, there haven’t been any major developments beyond this opening salvo as of press time. One imagines that there’s potential for some real fireworks going forward, so don’t be surprised if we wind up coming back to this well again in the next week or two. It’s the sort of item that we can only hope has legs, because talking about this will be FUN.

Here’s the joy of it – it’s already awesome. Just the thought of Captain Kangaroo cursing at Ellen Barkin, the mental image of Lambchop leaving a six-year-old child hanging … it’s magnificent. Just the sort of petty bullcrap that we absolutely adore here at Celebrity Slam.

But while Barkin had yet to elaborate (though she promises to do so soon), plenty of other people on Twitter proved willing to talk about how they too had been wronged by one of the accused. Granted, most of the stories tended toward shots at the Captain – including at least one from someone who claimed to be a former employee and stated that he “wasn’t a very nice man” and another claiming that Captain Kangaroo had testified against her in a court case when she was four. Most of the Lewis/Lambchop stuff revolved around rudeness and/or a perceived inferiority complex regarding the puppet’s success.

Look, we’re not here to ruin anyone’s childhoods, but let’s be real – after we found out that Mr. Rogers was basically on the up-and-up, that he really was that dude we saw on TV, what were the odds that other kiddie-show hosts would be the same? Is anyone really surprised to find out that Captain Kangaroo was kind of a jerk? Or that Shari Lewis was weirdly jealous of her sock? Or that either one of them really didn’t like children very much?

Obviously, we can only hope that the details of just how terrible these people really flow now that the dam has been broken. Sure, we love a story of a guy like Fred Rogers, someone who walks the walk just as he talks the talk. But even more fun is the idea of hearing decades worth of tales from people who are only too happy to tell you just why Captain Kangaroo is the worst and how much Lambchop kinda sucks.

No one could have predicted that Ellen Barkin would be the whistleblower revealing the jackassery of old kiddie-show hosts, but hey – we’re just glad she did it.

We’re big fans of beef here at Celebrity Slam. It’s no secret – anyone who has spent any time reading this feature knows that we love nothing more than biting into a sizzling bit of grade-A celebrity feud tenderloin.

And we’ve been spoiled in recent weeks – there has been a lot of celeb-on-celeb beefing that has given us plenty of fodder. Unfortunately, there are no new Bieber-issued fight challenges to Tom Cruise this time around. It has been great, but alas – all good things must end. Or at least pause briefly.

That said, this doesn’t mean we can’t go back to the Bieber well again. Because here’s the thing: Despite being wildly successful and one of the most famous people on the planet, the Biebs has a tendency to be actively disliked by people. And when that active dislike comes from other famous people, well … we’ve got some beef on the grill.

This brings us to Maynard James Keenan. That’s right – this item about Justin Bieber springs from actions taken by the front man of Tool.

Apparently, Bieber recently went on an uploading frenzy on Instagram that included a post that featured lyrics from the 2006 Tool song “The Pot.” Keenan took umbrage with the notion that his music might be associated with the Biebs and so responded with a simple #bummer.

While Bieber didn’t respond – we assume he was coming up with yet another way to challenge Tom Cruise to do battle – his wife Hailey went ahead and defended her man, going off on Keenan on Twitter, writing:

“He expressed he was a fan of your music. Grew up listening to your music. You must be unhappy with yourself that you want to make people feel small who express their admiration for you. Very childish and hurtful thing to do. I hope u find security within yourself. Sad place to be.”

Yeah. That’s pretty much it. Told you it was a light week.

That said, we can still have some fun with this. There’s something hilarious about a dude like Keenan getting all bent out of shape when one of the popular kids expresses interest in his stuff. His whole brand is built on his edge, so having someone like the Biebs out there talking about liking Tool’s music must be kind of, well … scary.

Think about the existential fear that something like this might introduce into Maynard’s world. If someone as mainstream and vanilla as Justin Bieber likes his music, does that mean that he himself is now mainstream and vanilla. I mean, how edgy can you be if the Biebs is into your work?

And then to get dragged on Twitter by Hailey Bieber? Her dad’s a lesser Baldwin, man – it doesn’t get much lamer than that. And for that girl to come after him and tell him what a jerk he is? That’s the sort of thing that could induce some high school flashbacks.

(Sure, maybe Maynard had an enjoyable high school experience, but we’re comfortable with our hypothesis.)

Seriously, dude – we get that you’re trying to be the cool kid, but in what world would this possibly work out in your favor? This is a guy with legions of fans who blindly idolize him – why would you not let him steer them to your records? We understand that you have an image or whatever, but come on – it’s not like Tool is at the peak of relevance these days. That’s a golden opportunity to make some bank, flushed down the toilet because you think you’re a badass.

As for Justin, well … this is actually kind of nice for him. He gets to flex and show off some heavier music cred, and when the shade starts getting thrown, his lovely wife handles the clapback on his behalf. It all works out swimmingly for him, which is great, because he has plenty on his plate, what with figuring out how to MMA fight Tom Cruise or go Foxy Boxing with Matt Damon or dueling with pistols at dawn with Schwarzenegger or whatever the hell he’s looking to do next.

And that’s that. Here’s hoping that someone a little more interesting does something a little more exciting next week.

As anyone who has spent any time with this page knows, we love it when we can milk a story for all that it’s worth. We’re just as lazy as the next folks – when famous people lean into their weirdness for long enough that we can get multiple weeks of content out of it, we’re thrilled.

Granted, that doesn’t happen all that often. Gone are the halcyon days of Charlie Sheen rampages and rapid-fire T-Swift relationship turnovers and LiLo meltdowns – it has been much rarer as of late. We just don’t see celebs returning to the well like they once did.

So when it happens, we’re obviously excited to take part.

Remember a few weeks back when there was the whole kerfuffle on Twitter when Justin Bieber challenged Tom Cruise to an MMA fight? And we all got super jazzed about it for like 36 hours? Dana White even said that he’d promote the thing? Only then Bieber backed it down, saying that the whole thing was a joke and that Cruise would probably kick his ass anyway (which is 100% accurate, in our opinion) and Cruise’s camp never really said anything and that was that.

But was it?

First things first – we need to talk about the bottlecap challenge. What’s that, you ask? Well, it’s a viral thing online that involves roundhouse kicking the cap off a bottle without missing. Aren’t you glad that’s a thing you know now?

Anyway, there have been a rash of celebrities taking part, with some taking it kind of seriously and others planting tongues firmly in cheeks. Justin Bieber, in a development that should shock exactly no one, seems to be straddling the line.

Bieber posted a video on Instagram of himself executing the challenge. Part of the deal is that you’re supposed to call out other people to also do the thing. So who does the Biebs pick? His wife Hailey … and Tom Cruise.

The best part? In the video, before he does the kick, he says “This could be Tom Cruise’s head.”

This is SO GOOD.

Obviously, Cruise has yet to respond to any of this because honestly, why would he? He doesn’t need to jump every time Justin Bieber tries to drag him into some weirdo nonsense. He let the MMA fight thing slide, so there’s no reason to believe he won’t let this bottlecap thing go as well. He’s probably too busy hurling himself from the tops of buildings in his never-ending efforts to win our love anyway.

(Oh, and for the record, Bieber’s wife already completed the challenge, kicking the top off a bottle of beer while riding by on an ATV. Yeah, she’s definitely cooler than her husband.)

But there’s something almost noble about Bieber’s commitment to this particular bit. The fight challenge was premium-grade celebrity strangeness, the exact sort of bizarre lunacy that we live for in this space. And we honestly thought that once Bieber called it a joke and backed down from the thing, it was all over.

We’ve never been happier to be wrong.

What this new development says to us is that not only does Bieber still kind of want to fight Tom Cruise, he actually thinks he can take the guy. The inherent ridiculousness of that belief notwithstanding, it seems that Bieber might be willing to go full troll until Cruise responds to him. Because here’s the thing – that’s all he needs.

Tom Cruise is not going to fight Justin Bieber. That’s simply never going to happen. Sure, we all know what would happen if these two actually climbed into the octagon, but that’s a dream that will never come true. But here’s the thing – Bieber knows that. All he really wants is for Cruise to actually say no. He wants to make Ethan Hunt say out loud that he doesn’t want to fight Justin Bieber; if that happens, that’s a straight-up win for the Biebs.

Why? Because then he gets to be the guy who Tom Cruise was afraid to fight. It’s that simple. Even though it seems pretty clear that he’d get his business handed to him by Jack Reacher, if he gets a no, then he’s the big winner. Pretty savvy play, really.